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Dusty becomes chief of staff: Good move?

As you can read by clicking here, Dusty Johnson will be Gov.-elect Dennis Daugaard’s chief of staff.

It’s a surprising announcement, given that Johnson, of Mitchell, just won re-election to the Public Utilities Commission and will now leave that post. It’s also surprising given Johnson’s assumed political aspirations. Chief of staff has always been a behind-the-scenes type of position, so it’s not usually a job for people who want to someday hold higher office. A case in point is Dave Knudson, who was chief of staff for Bill Janklow and went on to get crushed in his bid for governor. Another case in point is pretty much every other chief of staff in history, because you probably can’t name any of them off the top of your head.

What do you think about this announcement? Is this a good move or bad move for Dusty?

3 thoughts on “Dusty becomes chief of staff: Good move?”

He had a tremendous group of campaign supporters and I hope they don’t feel betrayed. Personally I wish he would not have done this. We the voters are losing the most charismatic voice any PUC has ever seen. Bottom line, what I or anyone else thinks does not matter as I know Dusty did what he felt was best for his family first and then everyone else. I continue to support him and admire him.

Although I support Dusty’s decision to do as he feels best, I think his skills are sadly misplaced in accepting this chief of staff position. I agree with Hennepin that Dusty’s voice is the most charismatic the PUC has seen, and I would go one further: actually his is the most energetic visionary voice we’ve seen in SD government. On the other hand, I’m pleased to see that we will retain the skills and leadership of outgoing Sec’y State Chris Nelson in stepping into that emptied PUC position. Still, it feels like a ‘walnut shell’ game with Daugaard conveniently rearranging things to serve his wishes rather than those of the voters.

I don’t support Dusty nor do I admire him- it just goes to show how rotten political agendas are- when you don’t have the agenda of representing the people rather just putting forth your own agenda this is what you get. There just seems to be an air and presence of the good old boys club in Pierre from the governor house down to the legislature- good thing we passed term limits so these rascals don’t calim to be king someday. Let us not forget our intiaitve and referrendum prosesses for redress of grievances.Let us also remember what republican administrations have brought us- strip mining, the threat of a nuclear wast dump, the threat of a sewage waste dump. the ETSI pipeline, and the two oil pipelines, Hyperion oil refinery, the ill fated coal -electic plant at Big Stone and another attempt at another one seems to me we are going backwards not forwards into a future energy economy?? By the way who is the corporate that owns these wind-turbines???